This meant leaving the Bury band & hoping to become a member of the RAF Kinloss Pipe Band. They accepted me warmly.
I managed to miss-out on going to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo in '84 with the band because I had no time to learn the tunes, with just 4 weeks to go to the event. (which was very very annoying). The same fate occurred in '88 when the band were again invited to take part in the August & I was posted out in the May of that year.
I have many great events to remember however, with the band by the time I left Kinloss, which included:-
The handover of an RAF Victoria Cross to the RAF Museum, in a ceremony at Pitreavy Castle in Fife. (A good performance in a snow blizzard).
A “Fleet's in” weekend at Den Helder, Holland, where we were hosted by the Royal Dutch Navy.
Supreme Allied Commander (Atlantic) ceremony at US Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine, USA.
50th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain, commemoration parade at Buckingham Palace.
Massed Pipes & Drums of the Royal Air Force. September 1990.
Battle of Britain fund raising weekends in Guernsey each September for 3 years.
40th Anniversay of the Liberation of the Channel Islands, celebration concert at St Peter's Port Guernsey.
Many Highland Games events around the Moray district in the Highlands.
A small contingent of RAF Kinloss Pipe Band at a Taste of Moray event, Brody Castle, 1987.
During our journey to the event in the USA, we flew in a Nimrod. As we flew past the Grand Banks area of Newfoundland a crewmember launched a Sonar Buoy. When I asked why I was told that it would be our ditching point should anything go wrong with the aircraft from that point on. I said I had only come for the party, not the swimming lessons.
After a fantastic 4 years at a beautiful spot in the British Isles, ( & home ground), I was posted for a last tour to North Yorkshire & Leeming.
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